fullerene | Definition, Properties, Uses, & Facts | Britannica
Fullerene, any of a series of hollow carbon molecules that form either a closed cage ('buckyballs') or a cylinder (carbon 'nanotubes'). The first fullerene was discovered in 1985 by Sir Harold W. Kroto, Richard E. Smalley, and Robert F. Curl, Jr., for which the trio won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.